After the arrest of Julian Assange by British police and the unsealing of the U.S. indictment against him, the question is why is the U.S. doing this and why now?

The indictment alleges that Assange 'conspired' with Chelsea Manning by giving support to her attempt to find a password to an account that would have allowed her to conceal her pilfering of U.S. documents. Glenn Greenwald argues that the case is quite thin and clearly an attack on press freedom. That a reporter or editor has to help a source to conceal its identity is part of the job description.

The Obama administration, not known for reluctance to go after whistleblowers, had already weighed the 'conspired' case and decided against prosecuting it.

It is thus likely that the case, as unsealed now, is only a pretext to extradite Assange from Britain. The real case will only get unsealed if and when Assange is in U.S. custody.

National security reporter William Arkin, who left NBC Newsover its warmongering, is likely right when he writes that the issue behind this is Wikileaks' publishing of the CIA's hacking tools known as Vault 7.

While the publishing of the Vault 7 files received little coverage in the media, it seriously damaged the CIA's capabilities. Arkin wrote on April 11 about the Vault 7 connection. The Guardian and the Daily Beast were offered the piece but declined to publish it:

The American case, which shifted completely in March 2017, is based up WikiLeaks’ publications of the so-called “Vault 7” documents, an extensive set of cyber espionage secrets of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Vault 7 was little noticed in the emerging Russian collusion scandal of the new Trump administration, but the nearly 10,000 CIA documents that WikiLeaks started publishing that March constituted an unprecedented breach, far more potentially damaging than anything the anti-secrecy website had ever done, according to numerous U.S. officials.

“There have been serious compromises – Manning and Snowden included – but until 2017, no one had laid a glove on the Agency in decades,” says a senior intelligence official who has been directly involved in the damage assessments.

“Then came Vault 7, almost the entire archive of the CIA’s own hacking group,” the official says. “The CIA went ballistic at the breach.” The official is referring to a little known CIA organization called the Center for Cyber Intelligence, a then unknown counterpart to the National Security Agency, and one that conducts and oversees the covert hacking efforts of the U.S. government.

Wikileaks acquired the Vault 7 files in late 2016 or early 2017. In January 2017 a lawyer for Julian Assange tried to make a deal with the U.S. government. Assange would refrain from publishing some critical content of the Vault 7 files in exchange for limited immunity and safe passage to talk with U.S. officials. One issue to be talked about was the sourcing of the DNC files which Wikileaks published. U.S. officials in the anti-Trump camp claimed that Russia had hacked the DNC servers. Assange consistently said that Russia was not the source of the published files. He offered technical evidence to prove that.

On March 23 2017 Wikileaks published some Vault 7 files of minor interest.

The Justice Department wanted a deal and made on offer to Assange. But intervention from then FBI director Comey sabotaged it:

Multiple sources tell me the FBI’s counterintelligence team was aware and engaged in the Justice Department’s strategy but could not explain what motivated Comey to send a different message around the negotiations ...

With the deal seemingly in jeopardy Wikileaks published the CIA's Vault 7 files of "Marble Framework" and "Grasshopper". These CIA tools systematically changed its sniffing tools to make them look "Russian" or "Iranian" by inserting foreign language strings into their source code. The publication proved that the attribution of the DNC pilfering and other "hacks" to Russia was nonsense. The publishing of these files ended all negotiations:

On April 7, 2017, Assange released documents with the specifics of some of the CIA malware used for cyber attacks. It had immediate impact: A furious U.S. government backed out of the negotiations, and then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo slammed WikiLeaks as a “hostile intelligence service.”

The alleged leaker of the Vault 7 files, one Joshua Schulte, is in U.S. custody but still has not had his day in court. It is likely that the U.S. wants to offer him a deal should he agree to testify against Assange.

In another piece Arkin expands on his first take by setting the case into a wider context:

[C]oming on the heels of massive leaks by Edward Snowden and a group called the Shadow Brokers just months earlier, and given the notoriety WikiLeaks had earned, Vault 7 was the straw that broke the governmental back. Not only was it an unprecedented penetration of the CIA, an organization that had evaded any breach of this type since the 1970’s, but it showed that all of the efforts of the U.S. government after Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden had failed to either deter or catch “millennial leakers.”

The targeting of Assange is not only for revenge, though revenge is surely part of the motive. The wider aim is to shut down on leaking:

The thinking of government officials – current and former – that I’ve talked to is that shutting down WikiLeaks once and for all – or at least separating it from the mainstream media to make it less attractive as a recipient of U.S. government secrets, will at least be one step towards greater internal security.

Assange will first be sentenced in Britain for jumping bail. He will be convicted to some six months of jail. Only after that time will the legal fight about the extradition to the States begin. It may take up to three years.

Assange's greatest hope to escape an extradition is a change of government in Britain:

The extradition of Julian Assange to the US for exposing evidence of atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan should be opposed by the British government.

The time it will take for the extradition case to move through British and EU courts is likely long enough for Labour to win a general election. With Jeremy Corbyn in charge Assange would likely be safe. It is one more reason for the transatlantic establishment to prevent a Corbyn win by all means available to it.

Several long links on here, so apologies that I could not read most of this
morning's posts. I would however like to repost a thoughtful one from
Grieved so that it would be easier to read here:

@18 The Headless Prophet - "The permanent deep state management [do this and that]
and the circus continues!"

I suggest we need to do with your fourth paragraph what you've done
with the first three: make the top players as uncertain of consensus
and security as all those they think they control.

There is no reason to believe that the "permanent deep state" you cite
is any more coherent or settled than the other layers of the game you
illustrate.

Throughout this Assange affair in these comments, what rings the least
true of all is the concept that one force is above it all and controlling
the whole show, and will remain constant throughout the play. To repeat,
this doesn't ring true. Human life isn't that seamless.

There's a reason that "uneasy lies the head that wears the crown",
and there is no more uncertain a position than to be wearing the crown
on any given day. History shows that Praetorians can install Caesars,
that powers behind thrones can be stamped on by the throne itself,
that even the populace can have its moment on rare occasion, and that
there is honor neither among thieves nor among the rich and powerful.

Maybe the circus does continue. And probably the clowns and the ringmaster
must unite to deceive the audience during performance time, because the
alternative is unthinkable. But it seems most likely to me that they
in turn are plotting to usurp each other's glories and steal their powers,
or to change the performance, or to follow a different ambition.

So, just as the performance each time is cobbled together by the agreements
of the hour, so too are the alliances of power and privilege and money,
according to the exigencies of the day.

Finally, I think that money and privilege and power work to de-humanize,
so that in this way, formerly human players can agree to a unified script.
But when they lose their humanity, they also invite the caprice of the gods.
History can have its own ideas.

So, rather than believing we are powerless, we are each and all of us left
with ideals still worth pursuing, and the hope to reach them. And if
overthrowing the whole damn circus is that ideal, nothing says this is not
possible.

One event the Assange Affair totally wiped off the news was the utter failure of the Moon-Trump Summit as this RoK press release makes abundantly clear. A total waste of time for Moon. Another event swept under the rug was the historic agreement between EU and China, what Pepe Escobar described as a "Mandate of Trade Heaven". Then there're numerous domestic actions that could be added to the list, the military budget, Yemen War involvement, Medicare For All, and Trump's utterly disgusting, bordering on illegal, behavior toward Ilhan Omar. Then there's Bernie Sanders's Town Hall meeting to be aired on Fox News on the Monday the 15th.

So, yes, how long can the acrobat keep the plates spinning on their sticks while perched on a unicycle, and can any more be added to the mix?

I think the possibility has to be entertained that the US extradition claim is designed to fail (but certainly not out of compassion for Julian). The claim is too stuffed full of weaknessess and compelling grounds for rejection.

Unfortunately there are at least two possible interpretations for this scenario. The first, which has already been alluded to above, is that the intention of the weak extradition claim is to boost the "arguments" to rapidly ship Julian off to Sweden under the blatantly fraudulent and thoroughly discredited sexual assault charges (which is what they would be called in any country except king of PC, Sweden), while emphasising that there was "nothing much of substance" to the US extradition claims - then thence to immediately rendition him to the US under pre-agreed extradition arrangements.

The second interpretation is worse. There are different centres of power in the US, as recent years have made abundantly obvious. The Muellergate fraud has just been finally exposed (although the full report has still not been released, and perhaps never will be). Nunes has just made referrals for criminal investigations with respect to several aspects of the Muellergate fraud, including several individuals for lying to Congress, and more open-ended conspiracy issues. We all know what massive lengths the criminal "small group" in the FBI, DoJ and CIA went to to cover up their massive crimes in manipulating US government power, which ultimately was overwhelmingly the true and overriding motivation for the whole of the Muellergate fraud. Wouldn't it be nice to get some testimony from Julian on Muellergate issues, such as the authenticity of the "Russian Hack" allegations, the Seth Rich murder, and much more besides? Bearing in mind the aforementioned Muellergate manipulations, to what lengths will these same operatives go to prevent at all costs any such testimony? The history of Muellergate shows how much more effective executive firepower these operatives have than any putative legal authorities. In other words, Julian's life is in grave danger.

The UK regime is an old hand at such "arrangements", and rather more skilled (Skripal escapade excepted) than the Americans at rigging a "plausible" hit that does not compellingly point back at the US. The Brits' weapon of choice will certainly be Julian's own health problems, which are now most conveniently under HMG's total control.

It is a simple matter for the willfully murderous HMG to use "medical" procedures to murder Julian, and make it look as though Julian's poor health from 7 years in the embassy is to blame - then we can expect the full blast of propaganda - his own fault for hiding in the embassy, he foolishly failed to seek medical help which "fortunately" is now amply available, blah blah blah. Most likely they will employ a method with delayed effect, so that he can be shunted off to Sweden before the result kicks in (or maybe even released - but shunting off to Sweden is safer so that any ensuing medical tests and medical interventions can be highly controlled/fabricated for enhanced effectiveness).

The medical profession - one of the most profoundly corrupt professions in the world along with spies, politicians, and the legal horseflesh market - are like the UK authorities experienced old hands at such abuses. (I am not impugning all medical professionals in this way of course. The corruption varies from negligeable - rather rare as the efforts of Big Pharma to subvert start from the first day in medical school - to extreme with everything in between, but the British authorities have the full power to select perpetrators closest to their intentions). They might for example suddenly "find" pancreatic cancer (they have the capability to induce pancreatic cancer synthetically, but it could also be fake pancreatic cancer provided Julian remains under total medical control of the authorities in the UK or more likely Sweden). Or they could use uncountable other "medical" weapons.

Julian, beware prison doctors! Refuse any injection or infusion unless your lawyer is present throughout and receives a sample for independent testing. Do not allow any surgery whatsoever. Try to get independent medical attention if that is at all possible (eliminates the most potent control over the medical interventions, if Wikileaks controls the selection of medical professionals, although is still does not eliminate all the risks). Make it known that you fear medical assassination (this will be used against you to impugn paranoia, so best to make it known relatively quietly for the time being, with the capability to shout loudly if necessary later).

Medical intervention/abuse is a deadly weapon, especially in countries like the UK/US. I know from personal experience.

But we are supposed to believe the source because of Arkin's 'courageous' decision to leave MSNBC, right? After something like three decades of shoveling the Empire's propaganda shite, he finally grew a conscience?

The fact is Arkin is simply "reporting". As a reporter, he is afforded the leeway to "report" on things that may or may not be accurate. Anyone that believes him and passes on the reporting without thinking may be the one(s) that are actually spreading disinfo (if they know better or should have known better). That's why I continue @63 and describe Arkin's pro-establishment standpoint as revealed by his response to Ray McGovern. It demonstrates that Arkin's reporting deserves some skepticism.

"Your remarks indicate a willingness to accept that Seth Rich was a real person." Yes, I am absolutely willing to do this. Your Seth Rich-likely-wasn't-a-real-person-or-at-least-faked-his-death hypothesis has all the merits of the no-hijackers theories of 9/11, which obviates any need to look at all the evidence which links those hijackers to state-sponsored support networks. Similarly, in this case, it then becomes pointless to look at or clarify what all the sources with plausible claims to knowledge have to say linking Rich to WikiLeaks, or even refer to the fact that this is what I have done in my post, so that one can continue spinning ungrounded theories which posit a central organization pulling strings from all directions.

But I completely fail to see how pinpointing where the attempt to frame WikiLeaks as assisting "Russian meddling" was located (the G-2 operation), and highlighting counterclaims by plausibly knowledgeable sources about the way WikiLeaks actually obtained the files it published in 2016 - which requires distinguishing the G-2 materials from the two sets of files WikiLeaks published - "in fact, would also further those 'Russia meddled' accusations."

For the benefit of others, however, who may be interested in factual evidence about the way WikiLeaks actually obtained the files it published (for which I hope I have provided a useful service in collating specific source claims), I would also recommend having a look at The Forensicator's new report, and the other complimentary sources he links to at its beginning. I struggle to keep track of details myself, but I think the details merit attention.

...
Given this list I don't think one can say that poor T'rump has mistakenly chosen a few bad apples. I think it's a plan - as much as anyone as mentally deranged as Trump can plan.
...
...
Posted by: Miss Lacy | Apr 14, 2019 10:44:28 AM | 93

You're right. No-one has said poor T'rump has mistakenly chosen a few bad apples. And I doubt that anyone ever will. Would you mind taking the time to re-read what I wrote at #64 until you comprehend it?
If it's too complicated for you, let me know and I'll be happy to walk you through it.

This is clearly a long game: taking down Wikileaks by discrediting its founder. Once discredited, the entire organization can be attacked bureaucratically through takedowns on its servers all over the world.

Try some logic: If Seth Rich really was CIA and the leaks really were just a trap to snare Wikileaks, why the follow-on and obviously bogus "Guccifer 2.0" psyop by the CIA? The fake "Guccifer 2.0" leaks were obviously curated to remove evidence of anything potentially illegal or embarrassing and so the content of the leaks revealed nothing whatsoever newsworthy. The content of the "Guccifer 2.0" leak is exactly as you would expect of a CIA psyop attempting to distract from a real leak: mundane and boring. Why also leak real uncurated content at the same time that resulted in long term damage to one of the establishment's two primary sham political parties? The CIA is stupid, but not so stupid as to do what could be permanent damage to one of their parties just to swing a single election. This is particularly conspicuous as most of the damage done by the Seth Rich leak was to the Democratic Party itself and not to Clinton the candidate.

Spook Boss #1:"Hey, let's swing this Presidential election to the Red Team so we can hike military spending more, then next election we can swing it back to Blue Team to start a new war."Spook Boss #2:"Great idea! Let's leak this dirt that will cripple the entire Blue Team party for a generation or more. That will make sure Team Red wins this Presidential election!"Spook Boss #1:"Uh... but we want to swing it back to Blue next time. This dirt ruins the credibility of the entire party. Why don't we just dish out dirt on the individual candidate and leave the party out of it?"Spook Boss #2:"Herp derp! Who cares? We'll just burn that bridge when we come to it."Spook Boss #1:"Yeah, I guess you're right. Let's just wreck Team Blue for now and worry about fixing it later."

I guess it is a political game. The Blair wing tried to embarrass Corbyn (and subvert wikileaks) by bringing up the Swedish rape allegations, Corbyn dodged the bullet.

Presumably, Assange won this round. His situation in the Ecuadorian embassy had become untenable for quite a while and he could not get the medical treatment he needed. Britain and the US did him the favour to prove they wanted his extradition, which he can now fight for years in the courts. Giving wikileaks the chance to remind people of the crimes of the Iraq and Afghan wars. Quite likely wikileaks provoked Moreno by publishing proof of his corruption.
Assange is the victim in all this but prison cannot be much worse than the last months of his stay at the Ecuadorian embassy.

My theory is that the Deep State had an agenda for the 2016 election and the associated weirdness had a purpose.

I appreciate your input (even if I disagree with some points, as you disagree with some of mine).

I find Rich family statements and actions to be strange enough to warrant suspicion. Nevertheless, I do find merit in Norumbega’s point that G2 should be treated differently than the DNC ‘hack’. And while Wm Gruff and I disagree with who was the “chosen” candidate, it’s worthwhile to note that we agree that Deep State meddling is a fact - it’s called “managed democracy”.

Yes, it is "managed democracy". The difference between our views appears to be that you believe the management is competent and effective, at least from the perspective of the empire's oligarchs, and that things are going according to their plan, while it is quite apparent to me that the management is grossly incompetent and screwing up at every turn. I for one am very pleased that they are screwing up so much as it is due to these screw-ups that millions of Americans are cluing in to the fact that their "Democracy™" is decidedly less than democratic. It is critically important to the success of "The Democracy™ Show" that the audience suspend disbelief for the duration of the performance. If you don't have spectator buy-in then the "Democracy™" magic doesn't work. Unfortunately for the elites their actors keep fumbling their lines, the stagehands are forgetting to drop the curtains before swapping out props, and the audiences are jeering the intended heroes and cheering the intended villains during the audience participation segments of the show. The mood of the crowd is ugly and some have been seen sneaking in rotten tomatoes to hurl up on the stage at the next big gaff. This is NOT good for the elites, though they seem determined that the show must go on (thankfully, as the alternative is brutal naked dictatorship... more expensive than the "The Democracy™ Show" but a good old reliable fallback nonetheless).

You seem to think that the tomato throwing that interrupted the show in November of 2016 was intended. I don't see how you could think that was in the script when the entire cast and running crew got covered head to toe in feces and rotted vegetable matter, and no small amount also splattered over the writers and producers and even the sponsors of the show.

Faith in the US political system and corporate mass media are hitting historic lows. How you figure that to be the intended outcome and part of "The Plan" is beyond me.

Guccifer 2.0 was a US led misdirection / psy op created quickly and sloppily as a way of distracting from and implicating Russia for the DNC leak. To make the leak look like a hack for the ignorant US populace, Guccifer 2 was created and used to "hack" several files, on which were found "Russian" language metadata. As if an actual state sponsored Russian op would be half so ameaturish...a CIA/FBI rushed counter-intel psy op to distract from clear evidence of the institutional corruption of one of the two accepted oligarchic parties in the US, however...that is more in keeping with the metadata plants on Guccifer 2.0 files and fits exactly the kind of dirty work the CIA/FBI has undertaken for the sake of ensuring the "stability" of US oligarchic structures.

Agree with your broad conclusion re Guccifer 2.0. Disagree with your analysis of Trump's MAGA "program" as being the Deep State play all along. Trump's MAGA rhetoric was insofar as applied to domestic policy just that: rhetoric; insofar as applied to foreign policy it had no real principle but Trump spouted off enough about US interventionism in the MidEast and about normalizing relations with Russia that he worried an overlapping set of Zionists (Israel/US) and NATOists (UK/US) and so his foreign policy had to be "encouraged" to develop in a particular direction and Russiagate helped move that along. He's fallen into line and currently seems to be a Manchurian Candidate of Israel.

You walked in to the party,
Like you were walking on to a yacht.
Your hat strategically dipped below one eye
Your scarf, it was apricot.
You had one eye in the mirror,
And you watched yourself gavotte.
And all the girls dreamed that they'd be your partner
They'd be your partner...

This article is for Hoarsewhisperer and every other Trump whitewasher and Trump supporter still high on the Trump juice.: We got your number, we're gonna call you out, and you are fuelling the oligarch-run deep state and are traitors to the anti-establishment cause.

Western democracies and some ME ones (the goal is many more to come) are co-opted be Zionism. The U.S. is the template for all other government occupation and subversion.

Hence Democrats and Republicans compete with each other in professing their love and loyalty to Zionism and thus you have a duopoly. This is THE main reason we go from one stooge President to another to another no matter which side assumes the Presidency.

You say that the public's confidence in government and the political system is waning. This is true, HOWEVER, people have not yet discovered the root of the problem! They are still going from the present deception to searching for the new messiah to deliver them from the old messiah! And if it's one thing Zionists excel in is recognizing desperation, milking despair, feeding people's illusions and funding and grooming candidates that target the present sources of discontent injecting the masses with highs of hope, relief and euphoria during the primaries and election campaign and after the election the strategy turns to weaning people off their previously-induced high expectations with a wait-and-see gruel, and this is 4-d chess, the messiah knows better than you propaganda and a necessary long-suffering means to a beautiful ending bullshet. When in fact the Neocon oligarch agenda is advancing on cue and on schedule while you blindly, patiently wait for the messiah's hidden meaning.

So to fix this well-orchestrated subversion people must do a purge of Zionist oligarch capital from the political system. Never mind what the Zionist-driven Supreme Court decided. March in the streets, occupy all government buildings, protest online, and demand that only people with their small donations are allowed to fund campaigns, demand that politicians STOP pledging their allegiance to AIPAC, demand that Zionist-driven think tanks and lobbies stop driving legislation. Until the people of all democracies that have been Zionist co-opted (zionized) realize that the ideology of a minority is subverting the will of the majority, nothing will change.

Zionism is a scourge on democracy. And, Jackrabbit, we already had the discussion of who comprises the majority of the oligarchy that run the deep state. Case closed. It's the same one trying to ruin Jeremy Corbyn with smears of anti-Semitism, the same one that took down Occupy Wall Street with similar smears and ruined the careers of politicians and journalists who tried to break free of the narrative with same smears.

The Zionist oligarchy want another Trump term and are funding and grooming spoilers like Pete Buttigieg and Howard Schultze to get that result, while already preparing for the next people's messiah and spoilage for 2024.

People need to quit reaching out to these fake Zionist oligarch-funded messiahs and PURGE Zionism from the political system because Zionism needs power to subsist. It feeds on political power, the people' weakness and chaos to sustain itself, because it is driven by a lawless operation and chosen/entitled supremacist paranoia necessitating domination. Right now Zionism is using both sides of the white supremacy narrative to weaken and divide the populace including Islamophobia to further it's own supremacy. This is a massive, divide-and-conquer shell-game manipulation and it's happening world-wide.

Until people see the root of the problem and purge it from the political and geopolitical system we are all willing pawns and useful powerless idiots in their game.